Writers - Faculty

Centrum Faculty

This skilled creative collective could wrap their arms around the globe. Much respect, big hugs.

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Photo of Kate Lebo

Kate Lebo

Morning Workshop Faculty

Kate Lebo’s first collection of nonfiction, The Book of Difficult Fruit (FSG), won the 2022 Washington State Book Award and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Atlantic, New York magazine, Electric Literature, and The Globe and Mail. She is the author of the cookbook Pie School (Sasquatch Books), the poetry chapbook Seven Prayers to Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Entre Rios Books), and co-editor with Samuel Ligon of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze (Sasquatch Books).…

Photo of Sam Ligon

Sam Ligon

Afternoon Workshop Faculty

Sam Ligon’s most recent novel — Miller Cane: A True & Exact History — was serialized for a year in Spokane’s weekly newspaper, The Inlander, as well as on Spokane Public Radio.

Photo of Sebastian Matthews

Sebastian Matthews

Past Faculty

Sebastian Matthews’ latest books are a memoir in essays, Beyond Repair: Living in a Fractured State (Red Hen Press), and a hybrid collection of poetry and prose, Beginner’s Guide to a Head-on Collision (Red Hen Press), an Independent Publisher’s Book Award winner.

Photo of Kristen Millares Young

Kristen Millares Young

Afternoon Workshop Faculty

Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction, named a staff pick by The Paris Review and called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post, “a brilliant debut” by the Seattle Times and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine.

Photo of Valerie Miner

Valerie Miner

Afternoon Workshop Faculty

Valerie Miner is the award-winning author of 15 books. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Triquarterly, Salmagundi, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, over 60 anthologies, and on BBC Radio 4. Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, University of Minnesota, Arizona State University, etc.…

Photo of Matthew Olzmann

Matthew Olzmann

Morning Workshop Faculty

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route as well as two previous collections of poetry: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olzmann’s poems have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Photo of Dawn Pichón Barron

Dawn Pichón Barron

Afternoon Workshop Faculty

Dawn Pichón Barron (she/her) is a mixt-blood Indigi-Euro writer & scholar born in Southern California and primarily raised in rural Spokane. She is the academic director of the Native Pathways Program and member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College. Dawn is thrilled to participate in state-wide artist promotion and sustainment as an Artist Trust Board Member.…

Photo of Rena Priest

Rena Priest

Morning Workshop Faculty

Rena Priest is a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She is the incumbent Washington State Poet Laureate and Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. Priest is also the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award and fellowships from Indigenous Nations Poets and the Vadon Foundation.

Photo of Anna Quinn

Anna Quinn

Past Faculty

Anna Quinn is the author of The Night Child, (Blackstone) listed as #1 Best Real Psychological Fiction on Goodreads, and Ingram’s 2018 Best Book Club Book. Her second novel, Angeline, (Blackstone) will be released Feb. 7th, 2023.

Photo of Laura Read

Laura Read

Morning Workshop Faculty

Laura Read is the author of But She Is Also Jane (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023, winner of the Juniper Prize); Dresses from the Old Country (BOA Editions, 2018); Instructions for my Mother’s Funeral (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012, winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, selected by Dorianne Laux), and The Chewbacca on Hollywood Boulevard Reminds Me of You (winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, 2011).…